Truth for Life - May 30, 2015

A little thorn can cause much suffering. A small cloud may hide the sun. Tiny foxes spoil the vineyards; and little sins do mischief to the tender heart. These small sins burrow in the soul and fill it with what is hateful to Christ, and thus our comfortable fellowship and communion with Him is spoiled. A great sin cannot destroy a Christian, but a little sin can make him miserable.

Jesus will not walk with His people unless they drive out every known sin. He says, "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love."1 Some Christians rarely enjoy their Savior's presence. How is this? Surely it must be an affliction for a tender child to be separated from his father. Are you a child of God, and yet satisfied to live without seeing your Father's face?

What! You are the spouse of Christ, and yet content to be absent from His company! Surely, you have fallen into a sad state, for the pure spouse of Christ mourns like a dove without her mate when he has left her.

Here is the question: What has driven Christ from you? He hides His face behind the wall of your sins. That wall may be made up of little pebbles as easily as of great stones. The sea is made of drops; the rocks are made of grains: And the sea that divides you from Christ may be filled with the drops of your little sins; and the rock that almost wrecked the vessel of your life may have been made by the daily working of the coral insects of your little sins.

If you would live with Christ and walk with Christ and see Christ and have fellowship with Christ, pay attention to "the little foxes that spoil the vineyard, for our vineyards are in blossom." Jesus invites you to go with Him against them. He will surely, like Samson, take the foxes at once and easily. Go with Him to the hunting.

As Christians, we’re called to love Jesus more than anyone or anything else. But do we really do this? Emphasizing that God’s love for us is the source of our love for Him, Dr. Phil Ryken challenges us to take Jesus’ words seriously and to think carefully about where our affections truly lie.